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Tuesday, July 24

Hang the Thief!

Before I became a published author in June, I hadn't thought much about pirates. Except, of course, Johnny Depp! For a minute, I started to think about uploading a pic to share. But, then, I remembered a post I read the other day about a blogger who got sued, and decided not a plan.

The same day, on a crit list I belong to, a message started circulating about a free e-book site. Cool, I thought. Then I thought, are you insane??? Somebody out there is stealing our books, making money when we are not.

When the guy was called on it, he told us to F- off. Not only that, I was outraged when I saw how many seemingly rational people defended stealing.

The site is called Tuebl. It's on Facebook, proud and loud. There's also a web page.

One of my Critter friends, Daryl, has gone to war, writing every author she could find, letting them know this creep is stealing. She's Canadian, so she's written her version of congress, too.

Please lend pressure to getting rid of this guy. If you know an author on that site, tell them.

More importantly, the only way we can get rid of him, is to shine light on the bug he is. Please share with your friends.

You don't take what's not yours, whether it's a pic off the web for your blog, or it's a book.

This guy is rude and thinks he is above the law. Let's all show him he isn't above the law. He claims st be a digital revelutionary. Whatever the heck that is. Must be a new title for theif! So far he has lost PayPal and Amazon. Let's keep it up and show this guy we aren't going to stand by and take this!

Hear! Hear! You bring one down and others will get nervous. How to you get rid of the pirates? One site at a time. Make it harder for them to pirate than it is to be legit. I just hope the FBI takes notice too!

I have personally taken to alerting authors/publishers of their books being on this site. One that I am smiling about even as I type this is Douglas Preston of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I went to the authors duo website and gave them the link to Tuebl where it has their books on display. Douglas sent an email back not even 10 minutes later thanking me and that he would tell his publisher. I have since sent out some to other big name authors. Hoping this will light a fire. I did the FBI link as well.

I sent messages to my MP--Canada's version of congress.I want this piece of dog BLEEP to be brought down. And I want him to be used as an example at what will--should--happen to thieves. It's about time the laws become harsher for thieves.

Thanks for letting us know about this. I've had much of my work pirated in the past and don't appreciate it one bit. Yes, people such as this are outright thieves, stealing from hard-working writers. I suggest everyone set up a google alert for their own name, one way to keep track.

Lots of writers know about this worm, now I'm trying to alert the readers who value their authors books. I can't believe how some readers think - that authors make a "ton of money" off their books and why are they all so greedy? This last statement came off the BDB yahoo group. Money isn't the issue here - MORALS are! What is wrong with people that they can't see that?? Are we as people so desensitized that we can't differentiate between right and wrong? The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.

Usually these yahoos maintain a low profile and when they get shut down, they re-open quietly someplace else. Seldom do they engage in confrontations. This guys sounds like a real piece of work... or something.

It's usually helpful to contact whoever the site is hosted by, and that entity will just shut their access right down.

But as several people have mentioned, it's an ongoing thing and they do spring up again right away. Rather like toadstools...

It's the self-justification that gets me. "i can't afford it" or 'i only want to borrow it'. Or the 'i have the physical book, I just want an ecopy, too'. Um, so if you go into Target and tell them you have a movie on VHS and want the Blu-Ray now, you think they'll give it to you? Yeesh!!! Give *any* of these excuses to a plumber, grocery store clerk or any other business and you'll get an earful. But with art - whether writing or photography or painting or movies or music - people expect it for free. It's sad, really.

a friend sent me his facebook link to report it as a scam. on his facebook page he rants about how he uses the money to buy book for kids in africa and how evil authors are trying to shut down his "good works." and his facebook page has a ton of likes. why don't readers understand that if it's free (other than libraries) then authors get ripped off?good post, d'ann. i'll post a link to it.

I tried to give the "consumers" the benefit of the doubt. I thought maybe they didn't know what they were doing is illegal. But, they know and are defending it! I couldn't believe it! And they are so rude. They were calling the authors they claim to love names. I reported them to facebook. Don't know if Sherrilyn Kenyon knows, but her books are on the site too.

The big NY publishers are going to have go get behind this just like when the music industry finally shut down Napster.

I did notice Harper Collins jumped through all of this losers hoops and finally got a bunch of their books taken down. The thing is, this guy encourages people to repost the books that were taken down.

It's so irritating but I can't help but believe that since this guy is so "in your face" that he'll eventually tick off the wrong people. I'm hoping the Canadian gov goes after him.

Thanks D'Ann for sharing this information. In looking at the site and facebook, it seems Travis believes he is a modern day robinhood giving books to the poor, but there are other ways to give besides stealing from hardworking authors

I'm pretty sure that they WANT this controversy, unlike many other pirating sites that simply shut down and reopen quietly when threatened. There's a post on their Facebook page that notes trouble with the servers, and goes on to ask if users would like to pay $10 for premium access to the pirating site.

So I think that's the idea -- they've started a pirated books site, which is now growing in visibility and becoming unstable (because it's probably on a low-powered server), but if they can get people to pay $10 a pop to get in (and people really want in, to see what all the fuss is about) they might actually be able to go legit. They might have the power (in the form of registered, paying users) to enter discussions with publishers.

Think about it: they could be the Pandora or Spotify of books.

I think having a Pandora/Spotify of books is a great idea (in which users pay a monthly/yearly fee to get access to a certain number of books) but I'd hate to see THIS site be the ones to succeed in doing it.

One other thing: the whole charity angle is total crap. Do any of us actually think he's giving books/money to charity? I also suspect that most of his "supporters" arguing for his side on Facebook are sockpuppets. They sound the same.